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Last month, the Lower Manhattan Emergency Preservation Fund, a
coalition of five major preservation groups, launched a campaign
to caution development officials and private developers not to destroy
historic buildings as Downtown planning moves forward.
Although some city and state planners may understand the importance
of historic preservation, little attention has been paid to the
issue during discussions of Downtown projects, according to Peg
Breen, president of the New York Landmarks Conservancy, one of the
five groups.
“We welcome the plans and visions for a revitalized Lower Manhattan,”
said Breen. “We’re just trying to remind people that as
we look for new development, we should also look at existing buildings
and historic architecture and we should utilize it.”
The Fund’s leaders are seeking meetings with key development
officials at all the agencies involved in Downtown planning, including
the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. (LMDC), the mayor’s office,
the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the Port Authority,
as well as the agencies’ architectural and planning consultants.
And the preservation coalition, which includes the Municipal Art
Society, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Preservation
League of New York State and the World Monuments Fund, is inviting
community and civic groups to join their campaign.
“We want to make sure that all of Lower Manhattan is not considered
an open canvas,” said Ken Lustbader, a preservation consultant
working for the Fund, who presented the campaign to Community Board
1’s Landmarks Committee last month.
To bolster its effort, the coalition last month published a glossy
brochure titled “Building the Future, Saving the Past,”
with a map and list of 300 significant buildings south of Chambers
Street.
“Previously, there was no reasonable document from which you
could get a sense of all the historic buildings Downtown in one
fell swoop,” said Frank Sanchis, executive director of the
Municipal Art Society.
The map
includes 67 officially designated city landmarks and 32 buildings
listed on or eligible for state and national registers. But most
of the 300 buildings have no protection, the map’s creators
emphasize. And even landmark buildings can be torn down if the city
or state condemns them using the power of eminent domain, experts
say.
The Fund is focusing on three “corridors of concern” where
development is most likely to threaten historic buildings and distinctive
streetscapes: the Fulton Street corridor, near the corner of Fulton
and Broadway, where a new transportation hub is planned; the blocks
of Greenwich Street and adjacent side streets south of the Trade
Center site; and the east side of West Street between the Trade
Center site and Battery Park, where a grand esplanade and new housing
might be built.
“The historic buildings need to be considered while these projects
are still in the planning stages,” said Sanchis. “That’s
not to say we have to save everything that’s there, or every
building on the list, but we want to make sure the preservation
issue is taken seriously into account.”
Matt Higgins, a spokesman for the LMDC, said the agency was mindful
of Downtown’s historic resources.
“One of the first documents we put out, the Blueprint for the
Future of Lower Manhattan, said that whatever development occurs
needs to fit within the historic context of the community,”
he said.
But tradeoffs and sacrifices will have to be made, and some observers
worry that development will take priority over preservation. That
would be a mistake, they say, not only because beautiful and important
architecture would be lost, but because preservation can boost economic
development.
“In the nineties, when the economy was in the doldrums, it
was the reuse of older buildings, with city and state incentives,
that helped trigger the area’s rebirth,” the Landmarks
Conservancy’s Breen said.
The Fulton Street corridor has raised the most concern so far, because
of the scope of the $750 million transportation hub project and
the urgency to get it built. Development officials have said that
they are considering demolishing all five buildings along the east
side of Broadway, between Fulton and John Streets, including the
Corbin Building, at the corner of John Street.
A brownstone and red brick structure with elaborate terra cotta
details, the Corbin, designed by Francis H. Kimball and built in
1888–89, is usually the first building mentioned by concerned
preservationists.
When representatives of the MTA presented plans for the transportation
hub to Community Board 1’s WTC Redevelopment Committee last
month, several board members brought up the building.
“We’re aware of the Corbin Building,” responded Bill
Wheeler, the MTA’s director of planning. He said that an environmental
impact statement (EIS) required for the project would evaluate potential
impacts on historic architecture, including that building.
“During the EIS,” he said, “they’ll have to
look at all kinds of alternatives, from not having it there anymore
to leaving it there and making the project smaller. Right now it’s
an open issue.”
Aside from its new advocacy campaign, the Preservation Fund, created
weeks after Sept. 11, has focused on repairing buildings damaged
by the the destruction of the World Trade Center. The group has
raised $250,000 and pledged almost $150,000 to Downtown building
owners for such restorations.
“Lower Manhattan is one of the most historic areas of the country,”
said Breen. “We need to work together to protect it.”
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